This week was supposed to be the first week of spring…and yet we’ve had a blizzard that merits more snow stories! I promise next week we’ll feature sunny books of new life and warm sunshine! But since a few of these were sitting unread on our shelves and others were soon to be returned to the library, we pulled them out and made use of hot tea and a warm fire! Only after what seemed like an hour of taking off wet coats, mittens, boots, socks, etc and hanging them beside the fire to dry! Samson in the Snow by Philip Stead Samson in the Snow is a really beautiful…

A little bug has visited us this week. Not the kind with wings or six legs though. A virus bug. We have been relaxing with boxes of kleenex tissues and books everywhere, pillows and blankets for comfort and of course lots of hot tea with raw honey for healing. Fortunately it’s a mild cold, probably just a little something we picked up from the constantly changing weather. I used it as an opportunity to teach the children about germs, pulling out a splurge purchase from Usborne that Mommy invested in for home schooling. Everyone has insisted on it being read multiple times and it’s a winner for sure in…

As much as we love holidays around here, we did nothing except read these few books to commemorate St. Patrick’s day at home this year. Perhaps having a newborn made a difference! At least our church hosted an enormous Irish meal of corned beef, potatoes and such. It was so delicious!!! My husband’s family is part Irish (my husband and his older sister were also born there!) so it was fun listening to an Aunt reading “Fiona’s Lace” out loud in an Irish brogue. I’ve found lots of new favorite authors in this wonderful world of books we’ve immersed ourselves into. Two of them are included in this special St.…

And how true is that? Words, whether written or spoken, heard with our ears or proclaimed by our lips, have the power to change us. I see this happening on our journey to educate (re-educate in my case) ourselves with a love of life and learning. The children’s playtime, formally carbon copies of the cartoons they’d watched, are slowly evolving into bigger, grander stories of what we’ve read. Not to discredit cartoons (the Wild Kratt Brothers are still a powerful influence around here) but their minds have been stretched so much more and better by the variety of books we’ve been reading. Of particular notice is the recently-turned-four-year-old Middle Boy.…

It’s March here in Pennsylvania but it doesn’t feel very spring-like so we’re continuing on with another week or two of studying winter. Thanks to the books we’re reading, our whole family has become a lot more observant of the natural things happening around us…from noticing deer prints in the white winter blanket to stopping a moment, listening for the icy drops of snow pit-pitting against the windows. The librarians are becoming quite familiar with our faces. We’ve been keeping them busy either fetching books for us if we order online or eyeing a stack of books to return. We have a wonderful inter-library system that combines 9 libraries from…